Design Strategist - Workplace Insights

Design Strategy at Gensler is about understanding people and helping organizations create places where they can thrive. We combine empathy, research, design thinking, and evidence to uncover what matters most and translate it into strategies that shape meaningful, high-performing environments.

Our New York practice is growing, and we are looking for a mid-level Design Strategist with direct workplace strategy experience who is curious about people, energized by complex challenges, and skilled at turning research and information into clear insights and compelling stories. This role is primarily focused on workplace and real estate strategy crossing a range of influential organizations, with opportunities to contribute to projects in adjacent sectors and strategy services.

Your Role

You will help clients understand how people work today, imagine how they could work in the future, and translate those insights into strategies for space, experience, policy, and portfolio decisions. Your work will blend qualitative research and stakeholder engagement with quantitative analysis, using evidence as a tool to deepen understanding and support better decisions.

Working alongside Strategy Leads, Directors, Managers, designers, and Design Technology partners, you will own key workstreams from research through storytelling and recommendations. You will also help facilitate conversations that build alignment, challenge assumptions, and connect strategy to the environments people ultimately experience every day.

You will join a curious, collaborative team that values different perspectives, shares knowledge generously, and genuinely enjoys working together. Our work is foundational to design execution, giving you the opportunity to help shape the ideas and decisions that become real spaces for people and organizations.

What You Will Do

On projects, as a Design Strategist you will:

• Partner with project leaders to frame the right questions, define research approaches, and connect client goals to meaningful outcomes.
• Plan and conduct workplace research, including interviews, surveys, observations, workshops, occupancy studies, and other discovery activities.
• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative inputs to uncover patterns, needs, behaviors, and opportunities.
• Analyze workplace and portfolio information, including occupancy, utilization, headcount, space supply and demand, employee experience, and survey findings.
• Translate research into clear insights, strategic narratives, workplace principles, scenarios, and actionable recommendations.
• Create compelling visualizations, dashboards, diagrams, and graphics that make complex ideas easy to understand and act on.
• Develop and compare workplace and portfolio scenarios, clearly communicating benefits, tradeoffs, and implications.
• Design and facilitate client working sessions that test assumptions, create alignment, and move decisions forward.
• Build repeatable tools, templates, and workflows that strengthen the quality and efficiency of our work.
• Collaborate with Design Technology and other technical partners on advanced analysis and visualization when needed.
• Guide and mentor junior team members to strengthen both the quality of their work and strategic capabilities.

• Collaborate with design studios to carry strategy into design criteria and implementation, and support proposals that clearly articulate process, scope, and value.

Your Qualifications

• 4+ years of relevant professional experience post-graduation, including direct experience delivering workplace strategy engagements. General analytics, research, architecture, or design experience alone does not meet this requirement.
• Hands-on experience with workplace strategy activities such as discovery, programming, workplace research, occupancy or utilization analysis, workplace principles, scenario development, and translating findings into design or portfolio recommendations.
• Undergraduate or master's degree in architecture, interior design, environmental design, urban design, real estate, design strategy, organizational development, organizational psychology, statistics, economics, data science, or a related discipline.
• A strong portfolio with 2 to 3 examples demonstrating research, data analysis, insight development, visualization, strategic thinking, and storytelling.
• Strong Excel skills, including experience working with workplace information such as occupancy, utilization, headcount, surveys, or portfolio performance. Power Query experience is preferred.
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft 365. Experience with Power BI, Tableau, or other visualization tools is a plus.
• Working knowledge of SQL, Python, R, statistical methods, survey platforms, or workflow automation is a plus.
• Fluency with digital collaboration tools such as Miro, Mural, and Microsoft Teams. Familiarity with Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, GIS, or rapid prototyping tools is a plus.

You are passionate about the built environment, and the role strategy can play in improving the human experience. You:

• Are empathetic and naturally curious, with a strong instinct for understanding people, organizations, and the context behind what you observe.
• Are comfortable with ambiguity and can help teams chart a path when project parameters evolve.
• Can independently structure research and analysis, identify the right questions, and determine what the evidence can and cannot support.
• Can synthesize multiple inputs into clear insights, persuasive stories, and practical recommendations.
• Can communicate ideas visually through well-designed charts, diagrams, dashboards, and other compelling graphic formats.
• Are a clear writer and confident presenter who can connect with both executive and user audiences.
• Are a self-starter, critical thinker, and generous collaborator who thrives In a fast-moving, multidisciplinary team.